For All Eternity
by TheCalligrapher1
Summary: When Zack gives up his life to save Cloud he transcends from the mortal world to the eternal one. This is his story as he travels through the eternal world trying to find the one he loves. Along the way he tells his story about his life on Earth.
1. Chapter 1: My Sacrifice

A/N: So today I was watching Final Fantasy VII: Last Order and I suddenly felt the need to write this. I've never dabbled outside of Final Fantasy X and X-2. I've played the games but never really written about them until now. This should be a short story. I'm not going to make it long. So we'll see how this goes. Hope you like it. And a special thanks to Anrixan for giving me some insight on my leading man.

**For All Eternity**

Chapter One: My Sacrifice

In the after life you have nothing but time. Your life here really doesn't begin until the ones you love arrive. Unless of course you are a social butterfly and choose to mingle with those already here. But most don't. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you won't have a friend or two. I'm just saying that your life just doesn't really begin yet. Life is slow paced and you don't feel quite whole yet. At least I didn't. And so you wait. You wait for your life to begin once again. But in this life you have the memories of the past. And in this life you can still see those you left behind in the mortal world for the eternal one. You still see their struggles and their pain. And you pray that they can endure it and some how make it to the other side. All you can do is watch and wait. And that's what I did. Wait.

When you begin your eternal life its like you're reborn again. Only you don't start out as a baby. And it's sort of like those vampire movies you used to watch when you were a kid. How once you're bitten all your physical flaws disappear and you are the most beautiful thing that one's eyes can behold. There isn't a scar, blemish, or imperfection left on your body. Now your soul; that's a different story. You're still who you are when you died. Nothing changes unless you make a conscious effort to change. But most people don't. Most people don't see anything wrong with their personalities. They see that they now are physically beautiful and that they are perfect. Did I fail to mention that being in heaven doesn't make you perfect? Because it doesn't.

I wonder how I got here in the first place because I can't think of anything noteworthy that has merited me a get out of hell free card. I once as a child asked my grandfather what you had to do to get into heaven. And he told me that an act of pure selflessness would get you in for sure. That's when I though of Cloud. That day when we were in the truck riding off to our supposed new found freedom. I took that bullet for him. But I didn't see it as being selfless. I saw it as protecting my best friend. But that was my sacrifice. I wonder from time to time if I had made the right choice because when I look down on him from time to time to see how he's doing he doesn't look so happy. Like maybe he'd rather be here than there.

How do you know when you've done the right thing? And do you deserve a reward when you do the right thing? Should there even be one? Is that what heavens all about? I have so many questions that I need answered. I know that I should probably be out looking for my family but wouldn't they know if I'm already here? Shouldn't they have been looking down on earth to see if I was ok from time to time? I wonder if it just got to be too much to watch me after all I've been through. The events leading up to my death weren't exactly pleasant.

I guess that taking a bullet to the head for Cloud was the best thing I've ever done now that I'm thinking it over. And not for me. Because if he had died he wouldn't have a chance to tell the one he loves how he truly feels. I know that he thinks that he loves Aeris but I know that he doesn't. He only thinks he does because he thought my memories were his own and he was confused. I know that he loves Tifa and deep down he knows it too. Just the way he looks and talks to her is enough. I wonder if she realizes it. And where does that leave Aeris?


	2. Chapter 2: Stuck In Neutral

Author's Note: Hey, thank you all for sticking with this fic. I promise I will try to update as much as possible. Ok, a few things. I started this fic before Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII ever came out and I know it is only in Japan and came out two weeks ago (9/13/2007), so this may be inaccurate because there is still little known about Zack. Also, someone raised the question of no heaven or hell but the Lifestream and I just wanted to let everyone know that I am full aware of that and that I am using the Lifestream as sort of a gateway to heaven and hell.

Disclaimer: I own nothing that has to do with Final Fantasy. It belongs to Square Enix. Everything else is mine, so if you'd like to use it let me know.

Chapter Two: Stuck In Neutral

Youth. You never appreciate it while you have it. You never respect it while you are alive. And I wonder why I never thought of all the things I wanted twenty years from now instead of the things I wanted that day in time. There are all those dreams you never thought you'd lose and now your time has passed you by. I wish I could get it back but I don't think I can.

I remember the day I left Gongaga for Midgar. I thought that I would make something of myself. Become a real man, not like my father. He thought that just because you held a gun it made you a tough guy. That day he laughed at me and said that I would never amount to anything. That pansies like me would never make it in SOLIDER. I had told him that he was just jealous because he was old and washed up from his days at SOLIDER. That he had let life become bitter and had treated his wife and child in the worse possible manner. I kissed my mother good-bye and told her not to cry that I could handle myself. That was the last time I had saw my father alive. I wish I hadn't been so cold and immature. I wish I could have seen things from his point of view. Maybe he wasn't really the asshole I had thought him to be. I know now that Shin-Ra Corp. destroyed the man that he was. That was their job. To take strong young men and turn them into machines to do their bidding.

I look down on earth and I see how it is slowly being destroyed from the mako reactors and I can't help but be angry at myself for being a part of it. I can't help being angry at those who I had trusted. How they held me captive for four years and did horrid experiments on Cloud and Me. I look down there and see how he is struggling. How he believes that he is me. I wish he believed that he was someone more pleasant. Someone who lived a happy life. But for some reason unbeknownst to me his mind chose me. I see how he looks at Aerith because of the way I felt about her. The one thing that I see that is still him is that same brooding darkness. He still has that same anger that boils beneath the surface. I wish he wouldn't push the people he cares about away from him.

That was one thing that I learned far to late. That you needed people whether you wanted to need them or not. Just like I had needed my family and Angeal and Sephiroth. Ironically they all eventually turned their backs on me. But was that my fault or through faults of their own. Even now I can't figure out what was real and what wasn't. It feels like it was all a dream. Things that were once in my grasp now feel like air slipping through my fingers.

Here in the afterlife nothing is what it seems. One minute you think that you know what's going on here and down there and the next minute everything contradicts itself. I miss life. Here its like being stuck in neutral and you can't get out of it.


End file.
